The Sparrows are a family of women who've lived in a small Massachusetts town since colonial times, their lives enlivened by a magical gift (differentThe Sparrows are a family of women who've lived in a small Massachusetts town since colonial times, their lives enlivened by a magical gift (different for each of them) that first manifests itself on their thirteenth birthdays. As is often the case with magic, the term "gift" is applied here fairly loosely. In the present day, Elinor always knows a lie, her daughter Jenny experiences other people's dreams, and granddaughter Stella, just turned thirteen, has developed the ability to see how people will die. The relationship-wrecking potential of the first two gifts is of course blindingly obvious, and the third would be a heavy burden for anyone to bear—especially a thirteen-year-old who's not speaking to the mother who's screwing up their relationship by trying to avoid all of her mother's mistakes.

These are well-drawn characters who often inspire, simultaneously, the desire to give them tea and crackers and the desire to knock their heads together. Jenny is completely justified and utterly wrong-headed in her resentment of her mother; so is Stella. Jenny is absolutely correct in having concluded, after having it pounded into her head repeatedly, that Stella's father, Will Avery, is a lying, cheating bastard who can be relied on only to let everyone down. Stella is also right in believing him to be a loving, devoted parent who actually listens to her, which her mother does not.

There is a plot in here, involving Stella's gift of seeing deaths accidentally landing Will in jail, charged with murder, but the plot is not the point. The focus of this book is the engaging, and ultimately optimistic, story of the tangled relationships of the Sparrow women and their friends and relations.

Tan-Tan is a young girl living on the plan et Toussaint, where her father, Antonio, is the mayor of their town. Tan-Tan likes to play at being a figurTan-Tan is a young girl living on the plan et Toussaint, where her father, Antonio, is the mayor of their town. Tan-Tan likes to play at being a figure from Toussaint's folklore, the Robber Queen, one of a host of figures known as Midnight Robbers. When Antonio kills his wife's latest lover, he takes Tan-Tan with him through a dimensional shift, into exile on the sister planet New Half-Way Tree, which serves as a prison planet for all the criminals that Toussaint finds too difficult or awkward to cope with. What they find there is a much rougher li fe than Antonio anticipated, for which neither of them is at all prepared-- though Tan-Tan is much more ready to learn. (Even so, they're relatively lucky, coming in near a village where someone has taken the trouble to impose a rough approximation of law and order. Although there's better to be found on New Half-Way Tree, Tan-Tan also eventually learns that there's far worse, too.)

The plot is basically, Tan-Tan grows up to become the Robber Queen in the folklore of New Half-Way Tree. That's not the interesting part. What's interesting is the flora and fauna and native intelligent species of New Half-Way Tree, and the folklore that grows up around Tan-Tan. I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that the natives have really extreme sexual dimorphism.

I should mention that the book is written entirely, and I mean from first word to last, in a Carribbean English dialect, or adaptation thereof, which is not too difficult to follow, and not aesthetically displeasing, but it does make reading Midnight Robber a bit more work than it would otherwise be. I'd have preferred to get my first taste of the dialect in something of novella length, but this is still a good book and worth reading....more

Spoilers ahead. There's no way to say much about this book without mentioning some stuff that is, after all, clear to even the slowest reader after thSpoilers ahead. There's no way to say much about this book without mentioning some stuff that is, after all, clear to even the slowest reader after the first hundred pages or so.

Kathy H. has been a "carer" for nearly twelve years, and with the end of that life approaching, she has decided to set down her thoughts and memories concerning her privileged upbringing in the exclusive and isolated private school of Hailsham, in some unspecific spot in the English countryside.. She describes a fairly typical, genteel boarding-school life, with some important oddities. There is no mention of families, school holidays, life before Hailsham, or contact with the outside world. There is Madame, who visits periodically to collect the best of the children's artwork, which the children assume to be for inclusion in her Gallery. The teachers at Hailsham are their guardians, and the children know, in a carefully vague way, that they are different in some important way from their guardians, Madame, and all the "normal" people in the outside world. As Kathy and her friends, most importantly Tommy and Ruth, grow older, they are, as one of the guardians says, "told and not told" that they are clones, being raised solely as spare parts for real people. Kathy H., with her career as a "carer"—a sort of combination patient advocate and designated emotional support for "donors," clones whose organs are currently being harvested—coming to an end, is about to begin her own few years of donating vital organs until she "completes." (The word "die" is never used in relation to the clones.)

In many ways this is a good book Life at Hailsham and afterwards is beautifully described, exquisitely detailed, touching but not cloying, with a creepy undertone that's fairly effective. Kathy, the passive good girl whose more stubborn or more persistent than she seems; bossy, manipulative Ruth; Tommy, with a temper he can't always control and baffled by some of the social demands on him; these are kids I knew, though I avoided some of them. The problems here are different, and all the more maddening because some of them would be so easy to fix.

I don't have a problem with the fact that Kathy and her friends don't rebel against their fate. They've been carefully raised to believe it's their natural place in life, they're not taught or encouraged to think critically, and they're given very comfortable lives. Once they leave Hailsham, they go to the Cottages—somewhat less comfortable physically, but almost as sheltered, for their gradual transition from students to carers. What does strain my credibility considerably is that, once they're at the Cottages, living with clones raised in other facilities, some of them far less privileged than Hailsham, and able to watch television, read newspapers, and get out into the "normal" world to some degree, the myriad floating rumors don't include any stories at all of any clones having resisted. There is speculation about who they were cloned from, there are daydreams about the lives they might live if they were "normal," there are rumors about "deferrals" that allow two clones who can prove they are really in love to put off the start of their donations for a few years. There are no rumors at all about clones actively resisting or attempting to escape—no romantic daydreams of successful escape, no cautionary tales of failed escape or resistance, no stories of some carer—provided with a car and necessarily traveling around the country without close supervision, in pursuit of their duties—mysteriously disappearing or attempting to disappear. Nothing. Given that the main burden of the book is that the clones are just as human as we are, and are being used in an inhuman way, this is utterly beyond the bounds of possibility. Human beings everywhere tell themselves and each other stories that both comfort and frighten them. It's what we do. It's what distinguishes us as a species; there is virtually no other human behavior that hasn't been found in some form in other species. Human beings who aren't telling each other stories in order to frame and manage the most important fact of their lives are just not credible.

There is also, apparently, no real outside resistance to the fate of the clones. There is a terribly genteel and polite movement of which Hailsham is a part, making speeches, raising money, and creating foundations to raise the clones in more humane and pleasant conditions, rather than the factory conditions that prevailed before Hailsham and other foundations of its type, and apparently still the norm for most clones. But, in the land of the anti-vivisectionist movement, animal rights activists, and people willing to demonstrate and even riot over genetic engineering on plants and the creation of "Frankenfoods," there apparently isn't and never has been any more vigorous movement against human cloning itself—either on behalf of the clones, or out of fear of damage to the human race generally. I harbor no excess confidence in the human race; I see no reason why such a movement would have to be successful. It's perfectly plausible that it would attract nutcases who would do something seriously counterproductive. What I don't believe in is an England where such a movement does not exist at all—especially not since the cloning began in the 1950s, in the aftermath of the end of World War II and revelation to the general public of Hitler's concentration camps. That no such movement ever existed in Mr. Ishiguro's fictional England is another item in the "completely unbelievable" category. And it could be so easily fixed—the Great Revelation that the book slowly builds toward would be much stronger if the "scandal" that did the damage were rooted in a real resistance that backfired badly rather than what it's linked to here.

The final difficulty is Mr. Ishiguro's failure to think seriously about the underpinnings of his fictional world. It's the 1990s, and we've got large-scale human cloning for spare parts going on. It's been going on for decades; in fact, it started in the 1950s. Now, in the real 1950s, we had barely begun to even ask the right questions. It was four decades later that the first successful animal clone was created. We're still finding that cloning is different for each species—Genetic Savings & Clone, a real company, is really offering commercial cloning of your deceased pet cat, but they can't do dogs well enough to offer dog cloning yet. (Next year—they hope.) And not only is the failure rate in cloning quite high; the failure mode is pretty horrific. And even in "successful" clones, significant and life-shortening health problems that didn't exist in the original are extremely common. We're not even close to being able to clone human beings who would live to be born, much less human beings who would live to adulthood and be healthy organ donors. So how does Mr. Ishiguro explain this major departure in the history of science? He credits it to the "great burst of scientific progress" after the war. Oh, right. Sure. Without major differences in the direction of science before that, it's not possible. The least-major change that would provide a fig leaf of cover for 1950s human cloning have to involve Dr. Mengele making several major breakthroughs in the course of his medical experiments. And that brings us right back to the implausible lack of any resistance to cloning humans for spare parts, and now we need to consider that lack in the light of the science of cloning stemming directly from Hitler's death camps and Mengele's experiments. And we don't even have a token, lunatic-fringe resistance to the idea of cloning humans for spare parts? Utter nonsense.

Kerr tells two stories in alternating chapters, the story of Eliza, in the seventeenth century, whose stepmother has enchanted her eleven brothers soKerr tells two stories in alternating chapters, the story of Eliza, in the seventeenth century, whose stepmother has enchanted her eleven brothers so that they are swans by day and men only by night, and the story of Elias, in the early eighties in New York, whose parents have kicked him out. They're both interesting, compelling stories, and I enjoyed both them. I don't, though, see the close parallels between them that Kerr says in an afterword motivated her, beyond a rather tenuous theme of "what's family". The motivations of the parental units are different, their actions are different, the responses of Eliza and Elias are different, and the outcomes are different. One is severely let down by adopted family; every important member of the other's adopted family stands firm. One succeeds in defeating the evil that oppresses them; the other can only defeat it in spirit. One story is fantasy; the other is mainstream mimetic fiction.

On the other hand, each contains an obvious mistake about an easily checked background detail. (Witches were not burned alive in England; Catholic priests released from their vows retain the power to perform the sacraments.)

I have one additional complaint about Elias' story. There's someone at the beginning who helps him survive his first days on the streets, and tries to teach him survival skills for living in the streets. When Elias gets a chance to get off the streets, he quite rightly jumps at it. From the point of view of that first person to befriend him, though, he must have seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth, in circumstances where his having gotten killed would not be out of the question. When Eliza walks away from the people who know her, some of whom care about her, she has a compelling reason for not attempting any contact with them again, at least until after the end of the story. Elias, though, had some options for at least attempting to get word to his street friend that he didn't die bleeding in an alley, even if he didn't want to make direct contact--a personal ad, for instance. As far as the reader can tell from the text of the story, though, Elias never thinks about that person again, once his luck changes.

But I repeat that these are both good stories, and I enjoyed both of them. Kerr does a good job of making the reader care about each of her protagonists, and the problems that confront them....more

This is a new Hainish novel, about a young Observer for the Ekumen on her first assignment. Sutty grew up on an Earth dominated by a rigid, repressiveThis is a new Hainish novel, about a young Observer for the Ekumen on her first assignment. Sutty grew up on an Earth dominated by a rigid, repressive religious authority; Aka, the world she is assigned to, is controlled by an extremely rationalistic government, dedicated to advancing as rapidly as possible to catch up with the other Ekumen worlds, and eliminating any remaining vestiges of "primitive" thinking. Sutty's not the only one who has to reexamine all her assumptions; she's just one of the first to realize it. This isn't as good as The Dispossessed, or The Left Hand of Darkness, but it is a good, satisfying story....more

This is a slender and charming travelogue of places that don't exist. The stories that make it up were published over the last five years in a varietyThis is a slender and charming travelogue of places that don't exist. The stories that make it up were published over the last five years in a variety of places, with the exception of the introductory story. "Sita Dulip's Method" sets up a frame for the whole.

Anyone can visit other planes of existence, but to make the transition you need to achieve a certain level of discomfort, boredom, and indigestion. On our plane of existence, this is only achieved when waiting in an airport between connecting flights--when you are, literally, between planes. The Interplanary Agency maintains a generally loose supervision of this travel, providing translation devices, guidebooks, and accommodations for longer stays. They'll take stronger measures in the event of real misbehavior by visitors or hosts. Without misbehavior, both wonders and quiet horrors are available to the adventurous traveler.

This is a YA novel set in the same world as Le Guin’s earlier Gifts, and Orrec and Gry, from the previous book, do figure in the story. The story is cThis is a YA novel set in the same world as Le Guin’s earlier Gifts, and Orrec and Gry, from the previous book, do figure in the story. The story is completely separate, though, and it’s not necessary to have read that one in order to read this.

Memer is a young girl growing up in a city under occupation. Ansul was previously a city of learning and culture; the conquerors have looted the university and destroyed all the books in the city. Writing is demonic, because it takes words, the breath of Atth, the Alds’ god, and traps it. Memer’s household, Galvamand, was one of the leading households of the city before the Alds arrived, one of the most learned households, and a bit more than that, as we and Memer gradually learn. The house has a secret room, where some of Ansul’s books have been preserved, and the head of the household, Sulter Galva, teaches Memer to read. It’s the one bright spot in a hard and impoverished life, and for everyone’s safety they keep it secret even from the rest of their own household.

Two things upset this precarious stability. One day when she’s out doing the marketing, trying to avoid the notice of the Ald soldiers who can be capriciously violent, Memer witnesses the arrival of a Maker, a storyteller—Orrec, with Gry, and a pet lion they’ve acquired. Because of the Alds’ ban on books, and because both Alds and the citizens of Ansul greatly admire storytellers, Orrec’s arrival would have been a major event even if the lion hadn’t panicked one of the soldiers’ horses. Memer, with great presence of mind and a sense that the god of luck has taken charge of her for the day, manages to get control of the horse before it runs anyone down. In the aftermath of this, Orrec and Gry are invited to stay at Galvamand while they’re in Ansul. Since Orrec has been invited to perform for the Gand Ioratth, the Ald commander, this brings Memer into closer contact with the occupiers than she has ever experienced.

The second disruptive force is that some of the other formerly-prominent citizens of Ansul are plotting a rebellion against the Alds, and they’re consulting Sulter Galva, even though he won’t commit to taking part and isn’t convinced it’s wise to make the attempt.

Orrec and Gry offer to take Memer with them for Orrec’s performances for the Gand, and despite her own reluctance, Sulter encourages this, both so she’ll hear his best material, and so she’ll learn more about the Alds. Memer becomes one of the few people in the city with contacts on both sides. Almost against her will she starts to learn both more about the Alds, and more about the history of her own city. When word arrives that the Alds’ Gand of Gands has died, and political changes are coming that could have major repercussions for Ansul, even while the plans for rebellion are coming to a head, Memer is forced into a critical role in the crisis.

This book has all the feel of a Victorian England setting, but that's not quite right. It's set in an alternate England, and date of divergence appearThis book has all the feel of a Victorian England setting, but that's not quite right. It's set in an alternate England, and date of divergence appears to 1798 (although that's not 100% clear), and the story takes places three Ages after that--about three centuries.

The cause of the divergence is the discovery of aether, which makes possible a magic-based, Guild-controlled economy with a social structure much like Victorian England, only more repressive and with less hope for change. Guilds control all the really useful work, and all the wealth, and membership in a guild is a secure spot in the social structure. Unfortunately, working with aether carries with it the risk of becoming a Changeling, or, to use this society's ruder word, a troll--a mutant, essentially, usually monstrous. Trolls, or Changelings, even former Guild members, have no rights, and get locked up in warehouses wear they can, sometimes, be experimented upon. The Light Ages is the story of Robert Borrows, a young boy whose mother becomes a troll and is taken away, and who is later befriended by a Guild Grandmaster who apparently has some connection with his mother from years ago. Between the Grandmaster's strange behavior, and the differently strange behavior of a beautiful girl his own age who turns out to be a really odd sort of Changeling, Robert begins to suspect something of the dark secret stalking the Guilds. It's not until he runs away to London and experiences both the life of an unguilded, edges-of-the-law laborer and radical agitator, and the life of the wealthy high Guild families, that he truly starts to realize what a house of cards this all is.

It's an interesting world, and there's an interesting story in here, but Robert Borrows is both an amazingly passive protagonist, and annoyingly slow at catching on to anything involving people.

One frequently challenged American classic is Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemons.) The reasons for challenging it are varioOne frequently challenged American classic is Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemons.) The reasons for challenging it are various. It uses the "n-word" to refer to African-Americans of the pre-Civil War period. Huck Finn makes an important choice in the course of the book, in which he defies the law and the moral injunctions of his elders, and is shown as being right to do so. America of the pre-Civil War period is portrayed as being less than perfect--a long way less than perfect.

The story of Huckleberry Finn is simple; in fact, the Author's Note at the beginning threatens dire consequences for anyone claiming to identify a plot in the book. Huck, having come into money in an earlier book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, has been placed in the custody of the Widow Douglas, who is attempting to civilize him. He appreciates her efforts, but feels confined. The alternative, living with his abusive father, is even worse. Huck runs away, heads down the Mississippi River--and meets up with the Widow Douglas' slave, Jim, who has also run away. They raft down the Mississippi together, with Huck getting an education about people, relations between black and white, and injustice. In the end they are back in the fictional town of St. Petersburg, MO, with Jim recaptured and set to be sold. Huck has a difficult choice to make.

This is not a grim book; it is lively and entertaining, and filled with adventures that any young or young-at-heart reader will enjoy. Huck learns a lot, though, and grows as a human being. This is an important book; it's also a fun one.

Gerry Rubato is struggling with the sudden, wholly unexpected death of his wife, raising their now four-month-old son by himself, and the aching absenGerry Rubato is struggling with the sudden, wholly unexpected death of his wife, raising their now four-month-old son by himself, and the aching absence of his much-loved daughter Tanya, seventeen years old, who ran away just a month before her baby brother Reese was born, and three months before her mother's death.

We meet Gerry and Reese as Gerry is returning to work, leaving his son for the entire work day for the first time since his wife Maureen's death. It's tough for him to do, but he knows it's necessary, and he hires the best baby-sitter available, and goes to work. Real life resumes for him.Gerry works his way through the unsettling feelings of everyone worrying and treating him differently until they get used to him being back, and his boss's frustration and subsequent hostility when he won't leave his four-month-old son for a long weekend in order to be included--for the first time--in the company executives' annual retreat. The most unsettling experience of all, though, is developing a friendship with a woman newly added to his team.

Ally is smart, funny, attractive, and sympathetic to his loss without making him feel self-conscious. They chat, trade jokes, share ideas, and become friends. When they take the first steps toward moving their relationship outside the office though, Gerry panics. What kind of a man is he, interested in another woman just five months after his beloved wife of eighteen years has died?

He works through his panic, he and Ally move ahead, and he develops a new, stronger friendship with his late wife's sister Codie, even as he and Codie share their frustration at Codie's parents' refusal to come north and meet their new grandson. Running through the whole story is Gerry's concern for his missing daughter, who ran off with her twenty-year old boyfriend, dropped out of sight, and contacts him only by email sent through a remailer, to hide her location. Tanya doesn't know her mother is dead, because he has no way to get a message back to her. Gerry begins writing a journal, the things he wants to tell his daughter and can't.

This is a warm, sensitively told tale, written with grace and dignity. Gerry's emotions are real and human, and treated with respect. Everyone involved tries to do the right thing, which doesn't mean there is no conflict. There is plenty of conflict--the most important of which is within Gerry himself.

Highly recommended.

I received a free electronic galley of this book from the publisher....more

Gerry Rubato is struggling with the sudden, wholly unexpected death of his wife, raising their now four-month-old son by himself, and the aching absenGerry Rubato is struggling with the sudden, wholly unexpected death of his wife, raising their now four-month-old son by himself, and the aching absence of his much-loved daughter Tanya, seventeen years old, who ran away just a month before her baby brother Reese was born, and three months before her mother's death.

We meet Gerry and Reese as Gerry is returning to work, leaving his son for the entire work day for the first time since his wife Maureen's death. It's tough for him to do, but he knows it's necessary, and he hires the best baby-sitter available, and goes to work. Real life resumes for him.Gerry works his way through the unsettling feelings of everyone worrying and treating him differently until they get used to him being back, and his boss's frustration and subsequent hostility when he won't leave his four-month-old son for a long weekend in order to be included--for the first time--in the company executives' annual retreat. The most unsettling experience of all, though, is developing a friendship with a woman newly added to his team.

Ally is smart, funny, attractive, and sympathetic to his loss without making him feel self-conscious. They chat, trade jokes, share ideas, and become friends. When they take the first steps toward moving their relationship outside the office though, Gerry panics. What kind of a man is he, interested in another woman just five months after his beloved wife of eighteen years has died?

He works through his panic, he and Ally move ahead, and he develops a new, stronger friendship with his late wife's sister Codie, even as he and Codie share their frustration at Codie's parents' refusal to come north and meet their new grandson. Running through the whole story is Gerry's concern for his missing daughter, who ran off with her twenty-year old boyfriend, dropped out of sight, and contacts him only by email sent through a remailer, to hide her location. Tanya doesn't know her mother is dead, because he has no way to get a message back to her. Gerry begins writing a journal, the things he wants to tell his daughter and can't.

This is a warm, sensitively told tale, written with grace and dignity. Gerry's emotions are real and human, and treated with respect. Everyone involved tries to do the right thing, which doesn't mean there is no conflict. There is plenty of conflict--the most important of which is within Gerry himself.

Highly recommended.

I received a free electronic galley of this book from the publisher....more

In the early summer of 1991, Connie Goodwin has just moved into a critical phase of her Ph.D studies at Harvard, approved for candidacy and needing toIn the early summer of 1991, Connie Goodwin has just moved into a critical phase of her Ph.D studies at Harvard, approved for candidacy and needing to choose her dissertation topic, when her mother asks her to move into her grandmother's old house in Salem, and get it fixed up and ready for sale. This is even more challenging than might be anticipated, because the house has been empty and neglected since her grandmother Sophie died in the 1970s, and it hadn't been fully modernized even then. Connie's feeling a bit used, especially when she finds the house almost completely hidden behind its overgrown garden--but unexpectedly, she finds herself surprisingly comfortable in the old house.

And among the old books and papers her grandmother left behind, she finds a lead for a possible topic for her dissertation: a previously unrecorded Salem witch, Deliverance Dane, and a hint that she owned a Physick Book, a book of spells and potions.In her search for the book, Connie is puzzled by the increasingly strange behavior of her adviser, Manning Chilton, and frustrated by her mother's seemingly oblivious assurances that she "doesn't need" the book. She has also met a young man, Sam, who has frustrated his parents by becoming a professional restorer of old and historic buildings. Only part of their concern is that they'd like him to be a more conventional sort of professional such as a doctor or lawyer; it's also the safety issue of the amount of time he spends high up on ladders and scaffolding.

As Connie gets more and more caught up in her search through the probate records of Deliverance's descendants for the current location of the book, and she and Sam get more and more caught up in each other, Chilton's seeming obsession with the book grows more disturbing and threatening.

Howe has nicely captured the sometimes claustrophobic atmosphere of a Harvard graduate program, as well as the atmosphere of Salem and Marblehead, with their strong sense of their history alongside the bustle of the modern world. There are some odd notes; Connie, who grew up in Concord, MA, sometimes seems to be regarding New Englanders from the outside, as members of an alien culture rather than the culture she grew up in. Despite that, this is a thoroughly engaging, compelling story, and you'll care right to the very last page what happens to Connie, Sam, and their family and friends.

Hugh Penders is back in Amber, CT for his first extended visit since his brother Chase's death because his father has had a heart attack. It isn't jusHugh Penders is back in Amber, CT for his first extended visit since his brother Chase's death because his father has had a heart attack. It isn't just that his parents need his moral support; his father Richard needs him to take over running the store--and hopes he will take it over permanently. Both parents are offended when he flatly refuses, and agrees only to run it until it can be sold.

Since he's been drifting for the ten years since Chase died, and has recently quit his latest job, there's no obstacle to his doing so except that he finds working in the card and gift shop incredibly dull. Eventually, though, he gets bored enough that he starts making changes in the store, changes he feels his father should have made years ago. He's also distracted by running into Iris, his brother's last and most serious girlfriend, a woman to whom Hugh was also attracted. As he and Iris renew their friendship, they both have a lot of emotional baggage to work through with regard to Chase, and it soon looms as an obstacle to any future they might have together.

I found it took me longer to get into this book than any previous work by Baron that I've read. Almost perversely, this was because he's very good at what he does: he very effectively captured Hugh's disconnected, drifting state, his failure to move on from the crippling shock of his brother's death ten years earlier. It was only as he started to engage again that I found it easier to connect with the story, and care what happened to Hugh, Iris, Richard, the store, and the staff who work there.

Once that happened, I couldn't put it down. It was, in the end, a wholly satisfying novel.

Grace McAllister has just become engaged to her boyfriend Victor, and they're planning to tell his children during their weekend visit, when a normalGrace McAllister has just become engaged to her boyfriend Victor, and they're planning to tell his children during their weekend visit, when a normal Friday afternoon is disrupted by the shocking news that the children's mother, Victor's ex-wife Kelli, has suddenly died. The couple are now full-time parents to two grieving children, with all the new stresses this introduces, for Victor, for Grace, and for the two children, thirteen-year-old Ava and ten-year-old Ben.

Grace raised her much younger brother, and has never wanted children of her own. She's not sure she has the ability to be the parent the children need. Victor feels guilty for not having been as involved in his children's lives as he now thinks he should have been, and fears he is more like his father, who left when he was five, than he cares to believe. The cause of Kelli's death isn't altogether clear--she died of heart failure, but the underlying cause may have been an overdose of her anti-anxiety medication.

We learn that Ava, at thirteen, had been taking on enormous responsibility for taking care of her brother, and helping her mother do basic things like paying the bills. She's been bearing the burden of being the emotionally strong one in her relationship with her mother. Now she's confused and guilty, afraid that her mother died because she didn't tell her father or a teacher what was going on.

And then, gradually, Ava and Grace separately start to discover that Kelli's past is a mystery. There are no pictures of her after the age of fourteen until she's an adult. She talked a lot about being a cheerleader in high school, and captain of the squad, but the only yearbook she has is her freshman year of high school.

There's a big, gaping hole in her history. Is that where the explanation for her death lies?

We get the story in alternating chapters, Grace's viewpoint, Ava's viewpoint, and, in flashbacks, Kelli's viewpoint. It's a beautifully braided story, revealing events from multiple viewpoints, and building up a fuller and fuller understanding of Grace, Ava, and Kelli, and how all their lives have been affected by the decisions of adults around them as they grew, and their own choices flowing from those experiences.

It's the summer of 1961, and thirteen-year-old Frank Drum is living in New Bremen, Minnesota, with his Methodist minister father, mother, older sisterIt's the summer of 1961, and thirteen-year-old Frank Drum is living in New Bremen, Minnesota, with his Methodist minister father, mother, older sister, and younger brother. The sister, Ariel, is a gifted young musician, and is bound for Julliard in the fall. Their brother, Jake, speaks with a stutter and so doesn't speak very much at all, but watches and listens and thinks. Ruth Drum, their mother, is a wonderful singer, an excellent music director--and not happy to be married to a minister. She thought she was marrying a hotshot young lawyer; then the war intervened and Nathan came home from the war headed for the ministry instead. Despite that disappointment, Ruth and Nathan have a loving and mutually supportive relationship, and cherish their children. It's an almost idyllic life.

Then a young local boy, Bobby Cole, is found dead on the train tracks, and the police, who doubt he could have been so oblivious as to not hear the train coming, start asking questions. This is followed, much too soon, by Frank and Jake discovering a dead man near the tracks--with an old Indian sitting near the body, a presence they neglect to mention when reporting the body, the first of the summer's many lies.

It also sets the tone for the summer, a series of deaths and questions, mysteries, and lies hiding what's really going on. Frank is crossing into manhood, learning the weaknesses as well as the strengths of his father, the family friend, church handyman, and town drunk Gus, the local cops. He discovers how observant and thoughtful his brother is, and the complexities of his family's relationship with a wealthy local family, the Brandts. Ariel is dating Karl Brandt, and taking music lessons from his uncle Emil, but their mother Ruth also has a past with him. And Jake is one of the few who can easily communicate with Emil's sister Lise, who is deaf and (as Frank, reflecting on events forty years later, realizes) probably autistic.

Before summer is over, tragedy strikes the Drum family, and Frank struggles with the tragedy itself and the fear that it will break his family apart.

This is a thoughtful, beautiful, moving book, a story of ordinary people coping with tragedy and reaching for God's grace.

Joey Rubin is a rising young architect in New York, battling the glass ceiling and still hurting from the end of a romance with a co-worker. She's devJoey Rubin is a rising young architect in New York, battling the glass ceiling and still hurting from the end of a romance with a co-worker. She's developed a hard, cynical edge, and has been losing touch with her friends from college and earlier. She's also starting to realize that maybe it was a mistake to get rid of everything that reminded her of her late mother, after her father remarried, moved to Florida, and deeded the condo they'd all lived in together to her.

Then the lead partner on a project she's done much of the work on is badly hurt in an accident, on the very day they're scheduled to make the presentation to the firm. First she has to make the presentation on her own--and then she finds out that she's going to make the trip to the UK, on nearly no notice, to get the project started.

It's not just any project.. It's converting Stanway House, a house with a strong connection to J.M. Barrie, to a hotel and resort. It is, in many ways, a dream project, but it also pulls her out of her comfort zone. And that's before she discovers the skinny-dipping senior citizens who share her love of J.M. Barrie.

Joey's oldest and dearest friend, Sarah, is married to an Englishman and has been raising a family in London for the last fifteen years. Eagerly anticipating the reunion, Joey and Sarah are both shocked and uncomfortable with how much they've grown apart. At Stanway House in the Cotswolds, the locals aren't exactly welcoming, and the widowed caretaker of the property, Ian, is initially suspicious and a bit hostile.

But when she's out running one day, she finds a group of elderly ladies swimming in a nearby pond. In January. They encourage and dare her to join them, and she has an amazing experience.

It's also the beginning of a breakthrough on her project. Aggie is her friend Sarah's mother-in-law. Lilia is Ian's former mother-in-law. Joey starts to make connections, learn about the tiny community, and grow both personally and professionally. She's in for some emotional upheaval along the way.

This book deals beautifully with the relationships among the women, and matter-of-factly treats elderly women as individuals. It's an enjoyable book.

However, in some ways, it is a bit irritating. There are Americanisms in the mouths of the English characters, and improbable Britishisms in Joey's mouth. Spectators don't cheer loudly at equestrian events on either side of the Atlantic. For a supposed passionate fan of J. M. Barrie, Joey is apparently unaware of the existence of the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Garden, and Zitwer never mentions its existence in the course of the book.

Research, research, research. It's a writer's stock in trade as much as a good and graceful command of the English language.

This is a fictionalized biography of a quite remarkable but little-known 19th-century figure, Lucy Ann Lobdell, a woman who lived most of her adult liThis is a fictionalized biography of a quite remarkable but little-known 19th-century figure, Lucy Ann Lobdell, a woman who lived most of her adult life as a man.

Born in 1829 in upstate New York, Lucy learned from her father to hunt and to play the violin, both unusual activities for a female at that time. She did marry, but after the marriage failed, and she had a young daughter to support, her life started to veer off in unexpected directions. Leaving her daughter with her parents, Lucy left home dressed as a man, taking the name Joseph Israel Lobdell, setting out to make enough money that she could send for her daughter and make a life for them together.

She never lived with her daughter again.

As Joseph Lobdell, she started a school of music and dance in a Pennsylvania town. While quite successful for a time, she was eventually discovered, and had to flee on very short notice.

But by this time she'd discovered she liked being a man.

There's much that's hard to understand about Lucy/Joseph's identity and life, because the nineteenth century didn't have the concepts and vocabulary to adequately describe or discuss people who did not fit easily into existing gender roles. It seems quite likely that she, or he, was a transgender man, at a time when there was no possibility of society understanding and accepting her/him as that. While Lucy/Joseph's life is in some senses very well documented, it gives us very little understanding of the inner person, and no really coherent story.

This novel is an excellent effort at supplying that coherent story, and a possible understanding of who Lucy/Joseph was to him/herself. Her further adventures, in the Minnesota Territory and the early years of the state of Minnesota, then in New York again where she meets Marie Perry, and their subsequent life together is by turns fascinating and painful.

In a day when marriage equality and gender equity have made enormous progress, and the rights of transgender individuals have some protection even though not being fully accepted yet, this is an enlightening look at what life was like in earlier times for those who did not and could not fit the approved mold.

Highly recommended.

I received a free electronic galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley....more

Isabel and Jamie's son Charlie is now walking, talking, and attending nursery school. Grace the housekeeper is as devoted and as pig-headedly difficulIsabel and Jamie's son Charlie is now walking, talking, and attending nursery school. Grace the housekeeper is as devoted and as pig-headedly difficult as ever. Isabel's niece, Cat, is for once not involved in a disastrously inappropriate relationship.

And the mystery Isabel has been asked to apply her philosophical skills to is a real and genuine mystery, the theft of a valuable work of art, a smaller work by Nicholas Poussin, a leading French Baroque painter.

Duncan Munrowe is a wealthy art collector, and a single painting from his collection has been stolen during an open house at his country estate. It's a particularly treasured piece, and one he had planned to donate to an art museum. Because Isabel is known as a smart, helpful meddler woman, she is asked to help Munrowe work his way through the ransom demand and negotiation with the thieves. She's not sure what she can do, but, of course, she can't say no to someone asking for her help.

This is a pretty typical Isabel Dalhousie story, and if you've enjoyed the others you'll enjoy this one. This series isn't big on excitement; it's big on moral philosophizing and Isabel's personal relationships, with her household, her relatives, and her friends and acquaintances.

While Isabel is sorting out the mystery of the stolen painting, she's also struggling to sort out differences of opinion with Grace, about Charlie's education, and some interesting and potentially challenging developments in the life of Eddie, Cat's assistant at the delicatessen.

A gentle read, recommended if you've enjoyed previous books in the series.

It's October 1942, and the Stout family--Ann, Joe, and their young son, Little Joe--are on their way to visit Ann's family before Joe, an Army pilot,It's October 1942, and the Stout family--Ann, Joe, and their young son, Little Joe--are on their way to visit Ann's family before Joe, an Army pilot, takes up his new assignment in Indiana. There's a storm and the road conditions are terrible, though, and when a tire blows out, Little Joe is the only survivor of the resulting accident.

The loss of his parents, the abrupt transition from life in urban Texas to life in rural Tennessee, and the shock knowing the animals he's eating for dinner on his grandparents' farm, are all hard on Little Joe. Daddy and Mother Washington--Persifor and Frances--are strong, loving, and understanding, though, and work to give him a sense of security and a grounding in values that will last him a lifetime.Because World War II is under way, they deal with rationing, with troops moving into the area for training and maneuvers, and getting word of the deaths of young men they know.

Young parents today may be shocked at the degree of risk and danger that was a normal part of growing up prior to about a generation ago. What kind of childhood is it, when you don't get a chance to blow something up?

Because it's the 1940s, Little Joe encounters the effects of Jim Crow on the family of a man who works for his grandfather, and the first stirrings of the Civil Rights movement, and his grandmother's calm but firm rejection of the racism around them.

An excellent and moving story, and a glimpse into an important part of our past. Highly recommended.

I received a free electronic galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley....more

It's the summer of 1952, and Lillian Johnson, just 32, is found dead in her home. She's been suffering from multiple sclerosis and colon cancer, but nIt's the summer of 1952, and Lillian Johnson, just 32, is found dead in her home. She's been suffering from multiple sclerosis and colon cancer, but neither of those caused her death. She died of an injection of Seconol--and it's not clear that she administered it herself.

The prime suspect, indeed the only one, is her friend and physician, Dr. Kate Marlow. And Kate can't prove she didn't, can't even be sure what she did that morning, because she's been experiencing alcoholic blackouts, and doesn't remember that morning before she found herself parked on the road to Static.

Old friend Shenandoah Coleman is a reporter in Memphis now, but comes back to Round Rock to cover the trial--and to reconnect with friends and family she's avoided because of the burden of the Coleman reputation.

Shenandoah has to confront her own past and come to terms with where she came from. Kate has to come to terms with her alcoholism and its effects.

The whole town, in their different ways, are struggling with race and class and social change.

Round Rock is both changed and unchanged since Shenandoah left fourteen years ago. Dr. Kate is much like her father, Dr. Walt, the same dedication to her patients, the same resistance to banks, taxes, and bureaucracy of all kinds, and the same drinking to cope with the stress and demands of being the only doctor in town. But Kate is a woman in the very conventional 1950s, in a southern small town. She's loved, but also hated.

Shenandoah has run all her life from the bad reputation of the drunken, violent Colemans, but on this return home, she starts to see some of her relatives in a different light--and meets some previously unknown relatives, too.

Meanwhile, the trial exposes both the strengths and the strains of the Round Rock community.

This is a lovely, thoughtful, and loving look at the beginnings of a painful transitional time in American life.

Recommended.

I received a free electronic galley from the publisher via NetGalley....more

Elsie Porter is a librarian, estranged from her birth family, content to have the excitement in her life come from her friend Ana's wildly unpredictabElsie Porter is a librarian, estranged from her birth family, content to have the excitement in her life come from her friend Ana's wildly unpredictable dating habits. It's a quiet life, and she's happy with that.

Then on the first day of the new year, Elsie goes out to pick up a pizza for supper, and meets Ben Ross. They are instantly taken with each other, and exchange phone numbers. It's the start of a whirlwind courtship.

Six months later, Ben is dead.

In alternating chapters, we learn Elsie's story of their romance, and Elsie's story of Ben's sudden, pointless death in a traffic accident, and adjusting to his loss. Joy alternates with grief, and Elsie coming out of her shell to build a future with Ben alternates with her collapse into grief and her slow climb out of it.

Ana has trouble adjusting to Elsie + Ben, but she's a true friend, and is still there when Ben dies, to support her friend. But Elsie is extreme in her grief, and it's hard for Ana to bear up under the strain. Elsie needs more help than Ana can give.

Help arrives, from a totally unexpected direction.

This is a compelling and moving story, and I was especially drawn to the way Elsie is initially very isolated, and gradually becomes more confident, more connected to those around her, more aware of herself as someone with something positive to contribute. The new Elsie is someone better and stronger than the old Elsie, but the capacity was always there.

Recommended.

I received a free electronic galley from the publisher via NetGalley....more

Quin's Shanghai Circus is a product of the 1970s, written by a man who had an amazing career as a military officer, CIA operative, and manager of a GrQuin's Shanghai Circus is a product of the 1970s, written by a man who had an amazing career as a military officer, CIA operative, and manager of a Greek newspaper, among other things. The language is lush, the imagery strange and compelling, the story intricate, and the characters complex.

I'm sorry to say that I didn't actually like it.

A young man named Quin, born in Japan and raised in the Bronx, meets a man named Geraty, who suggests to him that he can learn more about his long-dead parents if he escorts a simple-minded adult orphan, Big Gobi, to Japan. Big Gobi's original guardian and sponsor, Father Lamoureux, knew Quin's parents, and in gratitude for Gobi's return, might be prompted to talk about them. It seems Geraty also knew them, or knew of them, before and during World War II, but he claims to know almost nothing.

It seems a simple, if enormous, undertaking, but there's nothing particularly tying Quin to his current abode and employment. So off he and Big Gobi go, traveling on a freighter, returning to Japan where they were both born.

What follows is an intricate journey through prewar conspiracies, espionage, corruption, and mystery. Key figures are Quin's parents themselves, apparently involved in an espionage ring; a one-eyed general, head of the Japanese secret police, the Kempeitei; the general's lover, the prostitute, now madam, called Mama; Mama's sociopathic younger brother; a Russian former Trotskyite disillusioned with with Lenin's Russia became; Father Lamoureux himself; and the General's brother, a Japanese baron whose title and lands passed to the General when he converted to Judaism and became Rabbi Lottman. Each witness tells a story that twists the previous one into strange and unrecognizable shapes, raising a a dozen questions for every real answer Quin gets.

It's a revealing and often dark look at Japan before and during the war, and includes a shockingly brutal account of the Japanese army's atrocities during the Rape of Nanking. Along with the brutality and grotesqueries, though, there is humor, humanity, and compassion.

I didn't like this book, but it is, nevertheless, a good book. It's a glimpse into another world, both the world of the book and the world in which it was written. It's not to my taste, but it is interesting and very well done.

Recommended with reservations; it's not for younger readers or very sensitive readers. Very much an adult read.

I received a free electronic galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley....more

This is a really interesting work of literary science fiction from the early 1980s. I missed it at the time, and I'm sorry I did.

The basic premise ofThis is a really interesting work of literary science fiction from the early 1980s. I missed it at the time, and I'm sorry I did.

The basic premise of this novel is that, at a not clearly stated time possibly in the early 21st century, the US is sending a crew of civilians to a habitat/colony at the L5 LaGrange point between the Earth and the Sun. It's the first time civilians have been sent to a space station as potential colonists, and due to a years-long campaign by wealthy guerrilla journalist (today he'd be a blogger) Tom Gilpin, it is at least in theory a first exercise in including the whole range of humanity, rather than just a super-fit, elite subset.

We meet the inhabitants of one cabin, a relatively elite group although not your obvious choices for First Space Colonists. They include Tom Gilpin himself, his old friend and collaborator Veronica Oliphant, industrial magnate John Mulenberg, former diplomat and current leading international businessman William Wert, Wert's Iranian wife Soraya, and the man with two names, Wulf Lievering/Jacques Cohen. Lievering/Cohen is not deceiving anyone; he's been living and working openly under both names, and each of the passengers assigned to the same cabin have been given complete access to each other's biographies. Lievering/Cohen has been a poet, a professor of literature, a translator, and other things along the way.

And then there's one of the few crew members who spends significant time with them, Fred Kim, son of an internationally famous architect who's done significant work for NASA. Except he's not Fred Kim; he's really Mole Perdue, son of the NASA admiral in charge of this project.

Mole smuggled himself aboard because he's deeply suspicious and concerned about the fact that his father told his friend Fred's father to keep Fred grounded until the second trip.

Calisher, whose writing career stretched from 1951 to 2009, practiced a complex, ornate style of story telling that wasn't in favor in the seventies and eighties, but may be more welcome today. We get the complex interleaving of the characters' stories, non-linear, detailed, and intricate. The story builds up layer by layer, as we learn the good, the bad, and the ugly of all the principal characters. No one is a mere spear-carrier.

A really, really interesting read.

Recommended.

I received a free electronic galley from the publisher via NetGalley....more

Paris, Tatum, and Geneva are all struggling with love--what it is, and whether they have it. Tatum and Geneva have complicated personal histories, andParis, Tatum, and Geneva are all struggling with love--what it is, and whether they have it. Tatum and Geneva have complicated personal histories, and it's sort of implied that Paris does too, though we don't learn much about his past.

Tatum, in her mid-thirties, is estranged from her family, which is to say her sister, has found that she always fails at love--there is no doubt in her mind that it's her failure, that she is in some way invincibly unlovable--and has failed at suicide a number of times. Most recently, she has had a failed love affair with Vincent, son of an old friend of Geneva's, and survived breast cancer by means of a mastectomy. She of course did not have reconstructive surgery following the mastectomy. Her sister has just died, and she is about to become responsible for her niece, Rachel.

Geneva is in her early sixties, has been making regular visits to her husband, who is in the late stages of Alzheimer's, and is trying to figure out why she never felt loved by him, even though she "knows" he loved her.

Paris is an aspiring young artist, in his late twenties, who is experiencing the artist's equivalent of writer's block, and working the night shift in a diner. He's in love with Tatum, or thinks he is, and is afraid to tell her.

The writing is very good, it really is. You will feel you intimately know these people's inner lives.

Unfortunately, this is literary fiction, where the writer gets demerits if the characters collectively have the good sense God gave a gnat. They make a fair effort at being decent human beings--for instance, they all do their best for orphaned eight-year-old Rachel. It's too bad they twist themselves into knots, keeping themselves and each other unhappy, for no reason that makes sense in terms of their own wants and desires, or the behavior of real human beings. If you allow yourself to care, you'll be on tenterhooks waiting to see if any of them can salvage themselves and achieve some degree of lasting happiness.

But if you like literary fiction, the writing here is excellent. You will care about these characters, like them, and want something better for them than they appear to be able to want for themselves.

Lauren Spencer meets Ryan Cooper when they are nineteen and in college. They are soon deeply in love, and their relationship strengthens and deepens oLauren Spencer meets Ryan Cooper when they are nineteen and in college. They are soon deeply in love, and their relationship strengthens and deepens over the years.

But eleven years later, when they have been married six years, somehow that deep connection has vanished. They are fighting constantly, avoiding saying what they want from each other to avoid more fighting, and have grown desperately unhappy.

After a terrible confrontation, they agree on a plan: They will separate for one year, have no contact during that time, and then see if they can put their marriage back together.

We see that year mainly through Lauren's eyes, as she gradually discovers what she really wants, what she wasn't getting in her marriage, what she wasn't giving, and starts to hear, listen to, and learn from, other people's ideas of marriage--her best friend, her sister, her brother, her mother, her grandmother.

This is a novel of character and self-examination, and it's extremely well done. In many ways, it's not my kind of novel, taking place so much inside Lauren's head, and yet I couldn't put it down. I like Lauren, her friends, and her family. It is in the end a novel of growth and attachment, not just for Lauren but for those around her, and it's very, very satisfying.

Recommended.

I received a free electronic galley from the publisher via NetGalley....more

Baudolino is the twelve-year-old son of a peasant in twelfth-century Italy when he finds Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy and Roman Emperor, lost in theBaudolino is the twelve-year-old son of a peasant in twelfth-century Italy when he finds Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy and Roman Emperor, lost in the local pea-soup fog. Impressed by the young man's cleverness, Barbarossa quickly cuts a deal with Baudolino's father to take him back to his court. Baudolino quickly discovers that his knack for creative storytelling, not to say outright lying, gets him a lot further than boring old factual truth, which in fact almost always gets him in trouble.

Many years later, in 1204, Baudolino rescues a Byzantine official, Niketas, from the sack of Constantinople, and tells him what may or may not be the true story of his colorful life.

Baudolino openly admits to being an unreliable narrator, so we don't need to fret too much about what is believable and what isn't as he recounts his early days in Barbarasso's traveling court, his education in Paris and wild adventures with his friends there, and rising in influence at Frederick's court on his return. All through this time, he's dreaming of the ultimate great adventure, a journey to discover the kingdom of Prester John, a mythical Christian priest-king ruling somewhere far to the east.

When tragic and dangerous events finally give him and his friends good reason to be somewhere else, they set off to find Prester John, carrying with them twelve fake heads of John the Baptist, and a bowl that might be, but isn't, the Holy Grail. Along the way, they have magnificent adventures and encounter all the fantastic marvels of the mediaeval bestiary, of which unicorns and skiapods are almost the least. It's a tale of friendship, love, betrayal, marvels and wonders, and a map no one dwelling in the real world would recognize.

It does reflect but not dwell on the ways in which twelfth century Europe was a brasher and cruder time than our own.

Oskar Schell is a nine-year-old boy living in New York City, and trying to cope with the terrible loss of his father in the Twin Towers on 9/11.

ShortlOskar Schell is a nine-year-old boy living in New York City, and trying to cope with the terrible loss of his father in the Twin Towers on 9/11.

Shortly after that horrible day, Oskar finds an odd-looking key in a vase stored on a closet shelf. It's inside an envelope, on which someone has written one word: Black. He seizes on this, and decides that he has to find the lock that the key fits, to learn something important about his father. Concluding that "Black" must be a person's name, Oskar sets out to meet every person in New York City with the last name of Black, and find out who has the right lock.

In the process, Oskar meets all kinds of people, from an amazing range of backgrounds. But in between Oskar's adventures, we learn the stories of Oskar's grandmother, and his grandfather, the husband who left her forty years ago, for reasons he never explained. As the three Schells tell us their stories, a fascinating family history unfolds, and we explore complex and multilayered relationships. Further layered in are Oskar's memories of his father, and the games and stories his father shared with him.

Oskar is smart, lonely, grieving, and coping in his own way, which is often baffling to the adults around him. That's perhaps only fair, since their ways of coping baffle him, too. He's an interesting and likable kid, and anyone who has lost a parent too young, or survived the events of 9/11 will relate to him. I'm very glad I finally stumbled across this book; I'm sorry I missed it when it first came out.

In the years after World War One, the older Kaninsky brothers leave their home in Riga, Latvia, and emigrate to New York. Charlie and Louie, now Kane,In the years after World War One, the older Kaninsky brothers leave their home in Riga, Latvia, and emigrate to New York. Charlie and Louie, now Kane, eventually go back and persuade their sisters, Rena and Jeannette, to join them in America. Their youngest brother, Mordecai, does not. Instead, he moves his small family, and their parents, to Vilna, Lithuania. It's a fateful decision.

When the Second World War starts, the choices made are irrevocable. We follow Mira Kane, Charlie's 18-year-old daughter, and Rosha, Mordecai's eight-year-old daughter. Mira is the daughter of prosperous businessman Charlie, owner of a knitwear business, safe, secure, and dreaming of a career as a fashion designer.

Rosha is the daughter of a Jewish family in German-occupied Lithuania.

The Kanes are devastated when they learn through Charlie's contacts that Mordecai's family has met the fate of so many Jews, rounded up, marched into the forest, and killed. What they don't know is that Rosha has survived. Mordecai thrust her into the arms of a friend, Polish candlemaker Marta Juraska. Rosha is hidden in the family's basement.

As Charlie struggles with survivor's guilt, Mira with the way her dreams are constricted and changed by the war, and Jeannette with depression and what we'd now call PTSD, the Juraska family and little Rosha navigate the dangerous waters of Nazi-controlled Vilna, hoping just to survive.

This is a beautifully rendered tale, with wonderful, gentle insight into the characters and their struggles. I just could not stop reading.

And there's a wonderful payoff at the end.

Recommended.

I received a free electronic galley from the publisher via NetGalley....more